history unique desert landscape. Several sculptures are set against the barren Mojave Desert with nothing else in sight except the lightly traveled Highway 375 and a few power lines. After you’ve met “Lady Desert” (the cinderblock blonde) by Hugo Heyrman and pondered the enigmatic, draped figures of “The Last Supper” and “Ghost Rider” by Charles Albert Szukalski, take the short drive up the road to an outdoor educational experience of a different kind. The ghost town of Rhyolite is the perfect stop for photographers, with its Instagramready abandoned buildings and silent main thoroughfare. It may seem quiet now, but the town was bustling with mining industry folks in the early 1900s. Production fell and people left, making Rhyolite a ghost town by the early 1920s. Visitors shouldn’t miss the saloon keeper’s house, which was constructed using glass bottles, and the lonely yet picturesque Cook Bank. (Those driving to Rhyolite from Las Vegas can stop along Highway 95 for a photo-op with a roadside attraction billed as the “world’s largest firecracker,” although
Flip out: The Pinball Hall of Fame
it seems to be, predictably, just a really large metal drum.) Those who aren’t in a high-culture, historyand-art mood can take their competitive spirit to a different kind of museum: the Pinball Hall of Fame (1610 E. Tropicana Ave., 597-2627). Museums don’t get much more joyous than this: a 10,000-square foot funhouse of pinball madness full of hands-on entertainment for those
who want to relive their arcade glory days. Admission is free; patrons only need to come prepared with a bag full of quarters in order to play one of the vintage pinball machines, most of which still cost only a quarter to play. From mid-century games to colorful machines from the 1970s and ’80s, the Pinball Hall of Fame offers more than 200 ways to practice your pinball finesse — just be careful not to tilt.
Ask your doctor for a referral to Nathan Adelson Hospice • Largest not-for-profit hospice • Hospice care is provided in your home— we come to you • Two inpatient facilities No one should end the journey of life alone, afraid, or in pain.
“Because hospices are not all the same.” —Brad Garrett 38 | Desert
Companion | AUGUST 2013
(702) 733-0320
www.nah.org